Friday Fun: Fairy Tale Ads

Here is a little bit of Friday fun that I found on Tales of Faerie. Lemmonpepper99 on You Tube has compiled a playlist of fairy tale TV ads dating all the way back to the 1930s!

It is interesting to see what themes the ads pull out while trying to sell something. Little Red Riding Hood is either about sex, safety, or personal power. Cinderella is more often than not about searching for things we desire or transformation. Sleeping Beauty is strangely comedic in most, and ends up being either about sleeping peacefully or waiting for what you want. The Goldilocks ones are always about "just right." 

I think my favorites were the Little Red Adidas commercial and the Oreo commercial for their animation, the Nokia one for finding fairy tales in every day life, and the GHD and 7up commercials where our heroines take their destiny into their own hands. 

ART: The Tragedy of the Three Little Pigs

Fun small post while everything is crazy. There is a consistently clever blog on Tumblr called Tragedy Series who comes up with very unique tragedies to mourn. This is one of my favorite:



Heed the warning of this tale.

Movie: The Brick House

Flavorwire, wonderful site that it is, brought my attention to a Kickstarter-funded movie called The Brick House. Here is the trailer:

I have to say I loved this. And yes, folks, it is real. It is not simply a spoof trailer. It will be a spoof movie. I have no idea if they will be able to carry the joke throughout the entire movie, but I hope so! (I agree with Flavorwire that the prosthetics are a bit much. It would have been interesting to see it straight.)

Video: Book People Unite

Sorry for the radio silence, folks! Its the end of the semester, so work and masters degree have been taking up most of my time. However, I wanted to give you this cute video today! It's part of a campaign for Reading is Fundamental, an organization devoted to making sure all children have access to books and discover the joys and value of reading. It stars some of our favorite literary characters, including Pinocchio, Three Blind Mice, Humpty Dumpty, Big Bad Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the three bears, and the Three Pigs. And a cameo by Levar Burton. What more could you ask for!

Art: Minimalist Fairy Tale Art by Christian Jackson

From Strollerderby:

"Strip fairy tales of all their pomp, circumstance, princes and princesses and you have a very basic story. And each fairy tale has some kind of hook, some sort of iconic image, item or idea that is easily identifiable. The graphic artist Christian Jackson recognized this and distilled a collection of classic and famous tales and conveyed each one into a simple, very minimalist statement.

Of his children’s story series, Jackson stated: 'My life was thrown in very childish direction when I became a father a little over 2 1/2 years ago. I guess this series was my way of releasing some of that energy creatively. I can’t really say that I “decided on children’s stories” my lifestyle pretty much demanded it. When the idea for the posters came to me, the iconic images for each story just sort of poured out.'"

 

 
 

These are beautiful! I think my favorite are Little Red Riding Hood, Princess and the Pea, Ugly Duckling, Pied Piper, and the Wizard of Oz.

Video: John Branyan tells The Three Little Pigs in deliciously classical English

This is a bit old but still fantastic! John Branyan laments the loss of classical, vocabularically complex English, and tells the story of the "Three Little Pigs" thusly:

"Carnivorous nature in full season, he called out to the straw-ensconced swine, 'Prithee, little pig, grant me entrance.' But Pig #1 recalled with sage foreboding that he is MAD who trusts in the tameness of a belly-pinched wolf, and responded immediately, "Nay, it shall NOT be, indeed, not by wit or whiskered jowl."

It fills me with so much glee, as one who loves language, Shakespeare, and fairy tales.

Ads: Behind the Scenes for The Guardian's Three Little Pigs Ad

From Creativity:

"It was clear that BBH needed to tell a story to demonstrate the news cycle. But which one? "We couldn't pick a current-affairs story for fear of it dating," said David Kolbusz, creative director. "And writing a revisionist history of a historical event seemed insensitive." So they went with fairytales. BBH also created scripts for "Humpty Dumpty," "Hansel & Gretel" and "Cinderella." But Mr. Rusbridger is a big Orwell fan, so the "Animal Farm" parallel won out.

Creatives studied trailers that gave the most plot away -- "Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," for example. Mr. Ledwidge also wanted the spot to feel like a trailer to a big movie, something like "The Dark Knight," for example. "I liked that the film inhabited its own parallel universe that was familiar but also allowed the viewer to embrace elements of fantasy," he said. "A mashup of old-fashioned nursery rhymes with a slightly futuristic contemporary world." Mr. Ledwidge looked at nursery-rhyme illustrations from the 1920s to the 1950s and based the costumes around those. The pig heads were cast from original molds from the Royal Ballet Co.'s production of "Beatrix Potter." The spot was filmed over two days, in two 20-hour shoots." (For Full Article and video).

This is an incredible ad. It is beautifully shot, very funny, and packs a wallop of truth. It reminds me of Jasper Fforde's Nursery Crime books, which set fairy tale crimes in a police procedural context. Granted, the conceit of the pigs' villainy is not a new idea (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), but it certainly gets it's point across. While I think this was the best tale to choose, I would love to have seen the "Humpty Dumpty," "Hansel and Gretel" and "Cinderella" versions.

The article also contains an old advertisement, demonstrating how viewing an event from three points of view can give you very different impressions as to what happened. Very smart. I am a fan of The Guardian.

Ads: The Guardian: What if the Three Little Pigs went on Trial for Murder in the 21st Century?

From Io9:

"In this clever (and fairly creepy) spot for The Guardian's open journalism initiative, the story of the Three Little Pigs is transformed into the trial of the century, complete with protesters wearing the porcine equivalent of V for Vendetta masks.

In this reality at the nexus of fairy tales and media bruhaha, we can also assume the pigs will be locked away with Struwwelpeter and the Three Billy Goats Gruff, who impinged upon a troll's right to collect tariffs. Hat tip to Precious Roy."

To see the original article: What if the Three Little Pigs went on Trial for Murder in the 21st Century?